Ishraq the Iraqi girl…another victim of America and the puppet government
Hiba Al Shamaree, translation by Hussein Anwar
February 4, 2010: The following short story is translated from Hiba Al Shamaree’s Blog, an Iraqi doctor who blogs for her country…and for such stories the puppet government arrested her, put her in prison and put her on trial on the basis of funding and encouraging the terrorists. Ishraq is a graduated from the Institute of Management – Accounting Department in 2001, a former employee at the Ministry of Commerce, before the occupation. She belongs to an ancient Arab tribe in Iraq, she comes from a middle class family consisting of a father, mother and four brothers. On 9 4 2003 (The day the Americans took Baghdad) their house was bombed by an American death tank in Ghazaliya neighborhood, invading the neighbourhood like snakes, spreading death and terror in people lives. The bomb killed the father and two of her brothers leaving the third handicapped and the fourth young…Ishraq and what is left of her family left Iraq, she was forced to find a job, holding her CV in her hands, a job in a country with a high unemployment rate, but Ishraq did not find any job… There was no choice for her but the street…which knows no mercy, and actually that is what happened because the road to the devil does not need any directions to reach it. Here Ishraq sold her body to different Arab nationalities in our great Arab homeland…

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Israeli report claims $2 billion stolen from Palestinians
Jonathan Cook
February 4, 2010 – Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than US$2 billion (Dh7.4bn) by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists revealed this week. A new report, “State Robbery”, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and part of the money was supposed to be transferred to a special fund on behalf of the workers…

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More air strikes in Gaza: the fruits and blessings of the Herzliya Conference
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES
Silvia Nicolaou-Garcia
February 4, 2010 – Israeli fighter jets late on Tuesday 2nd February attacked several targets in southern Gaza Strip, including on what used to be Gaza’s International Airport in southern Gaza. Minutes later, F-16 planes dropped bombs on a tunnel located on Palestinian-Egyptian border in Rafah. The raids did not result in any human casualties at the Gaza International Airport, but Abu Yousef Al Najjar hospital confirmed at least one Palestinian was wounded in the shelling of the tunnel…It is bitterly ironic that these air strikes come hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad attended the Herzliya Conference, shook hands with Israel’s defence minister Ehud Barak and called for an end to the occupation of the West Bank and the construction of settlements…

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Afghan resistance statement
The Impracticable Decision of the London Conference
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
February 4, 2010 – The London Conference is the eighth conference on Afghanistan held since the flagrant invasion by the crusading invaders eight years ago. The conference was convened to find an effective way for reconstruction, stabilization and elimination of the current crisis. At the outset, all such conferences are puffed up into larger-than-life portrait but, with the passage of time, they lose their luster and become target of hatred and resentment of the Afghan people. The reason that leads to failure of these conferences is the unrealistic approach usually adopted by participants of the conference towards solution of the Afghan problem and crisis. regardless of the ground realities in the country. This is because those, whose hands are stained with the blood of the Afghans and are involved in their torturing, take the initiative to convene the conferences. They are those who still want to sacrifice the Afghans for their colonialist interests…

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We need your help! Support the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.
Russell Tribunal Palestine
February 4, 2010 – The first international session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will be held in Barcelona on 1, 2 and 3 March 2010. The mandate of the Tribunal constituted in Barcelona will be to consider the extent to which the European Union and its member states are complicit in the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory and in Israel’s violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. After hearing an account of the breaches of international law committed by the State of Israel, a jury composed of eminent personalities will examine the policy and practice of the European Union and its member states in their relations with Israel, the occupying power, and assess the extent to which the result is compatible with their obligations under international law. On the 3rd of March 2010, the jury will render its conclusions in an international press conference…

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On the claimed “war exception” to the Constitution
Glenn Greenwald
February 4, 2010 – Last week, I wrote about a revelation buried in a Washington Post article by Dana Priest which described how the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed (by the Executive Branch) to be Terrorists. As The Washington Times’ Eli Lake reports, Adm. Dennis Blair was asked about this program at a Congressional hearing yesterday and he acknowledged its existence…Although Blair emphasized that it requires “special permission” before an American citizen can be placed on the assassination list, consider from whom that “permission” is obtained: the President, or someone else under his authority within the Executive Branch. There are no outside checks or limits at all on how these “factors” are weighed…

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Intelligence chief acknowledges U.S. may kill Americans involved in terrorism
By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writer
February 4, 2010 – Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill U.S. citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are “taking action that threatens Americans.” Blair told members of the House intelligence committee that he was speaking publicly about the issue to reassure Americans that intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense “follow a set of defined policy and legal procedures that are very carefully observed” in the use of lethal force against U.S. citizens…

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Video: The war within: PTSD in the military
Aljazeera.English
February 4, 2010 – Psychiatrists estimate that one in three US soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The film addresses the US army’s HR dilemma and features the stories of those who have had to come to terms with the physical and psychological wounds suffered from fighting a war that is increasingly unpopular in their home country and around the world.

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“Gaza is the only gulag in the Western hemisphere; maintained by democracies; closed-off from food, water, air” says Colonel Desmond Travers, co-author of the Goldstone report, in an exclusive MEMO interview
Dr. Hanan Chehata
February 4, 2010 – One year after the horrendous Israeli military assault on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, in which over 1400 men, women and children were viciously and brutally slaughtered by invading Israeli troops, MEMO sat down with Colonel Desmond Travers, one of the four co-authors of the Goldstone Report and the only military expert on the team, and discussed his views on Israel, Hamas and the incredibly mixed reception of his groundbreaking and now iconic report. The UN appointed fact-finding mission, of which Colonel Travers was an integral part, set out to investigate the claims that war crimes had been committed by both Israel and Hamas during the 22 day attack on the people of Gaza between 27th December 2008 and 18th January 2009…

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Al Maliki aims to challenge lifting of ban on candidates
Government spokesman calls judges’ ruling unconstitutional
By Scott Peterson
February 4, 2010- Iraq’s premier has convened parliament for Sunday to debate what his government branded an “illegal” decision to reinstate candidates with alleged links to ousted dictator Saddam Hussain in next month’s election, state television said. The television said parliament speaker Eyad Samarrai had at the request of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki called MPs to an extraordinary session “to study the decision of the seven judges.” The electoral commission announced on Wednesday that the judges had ruled that around 500 candidates barred from Iraq’s March 7 general election could stand after all…

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US presence in Pakistan exposed
Pakistani public is furious as evidence of Washington’s military influence builds.
Samira Shackle
February 4, 2010 – Yesterday came news of a bomb attack on a road convoy near a school in Pakistan. On the surface, this is nothing out of the ordinary — reports of bombings in Pakistan come thick and fast, particularly in the lawless and fraught North-West Frontier Province, where the latest attack took place. But this was different. The initial reports had it that “three westerners” were among the ten people killed. First, officials said they were journalists, then aid workers. It later emerged that they were US soldiers…

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Haiti: Three weeks after earthquake, angry protests over aid delays
By Bill Van Auken
February 4, 2010 – Three weeks after the January 12 earthquake leveled most of Port-au-Prince and claimed the lives of over 200,000 people, anger in Haiti over the slow pace of relief and the impotence of President Rene Preval’s government has erupted into protests. The protests came as the government provided fresh figures that once again exposed an even higher death toll. Speaking before the first session of the Haitian parliament since the disaster, Prime Minister Max Bellerive reported that 200,000 people had been “clearly identified” as having died in the earthquake. The figure, he warned, does not include those buried by family members or neighbors or the bodies that have yet to be recovered from demolished buildings. In addition, Bellerive said that nearly 300,000 Haitians had been injured in the quake, 4,000 of them having undergone amputations. He also reported that 250,000 houses had been destroyed, with more than 1 million people now homeless…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 05/2010 (28 Jan.- 03 Feb. 2010)
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
February 4, 2010 – Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law continued in the OPT during the reporting period (28 January – 03 February 2010). Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF wounded a Palestinian child in the West Bank village of Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron. On 30 January 2010, IOF moved into Beit Ummar village and chased a number of children and youth in the Bayad area. The children and youth stoned IOF soldiers who responded by firing sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the children and youth. One of the children sustained shrapnel wounds in his back as a result. IOF continued to systematically use excessive force to disperse demonstrations organized by Palestinian civilians and international and Israeli human rights defenders protesting the Annexation Wall, settlement activities and attacks of Israeli settlers. Many of the demonstrators sustained bruises as they were beaten by IOF while others suffered from tear gas inhalation…

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Video: Adjusting to life one year after Israel’s war on Gaza
Aljazeera.English
Februrary 4, 2010 – Hala Shunar’s life was on track until her dreams were derailed by Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Casey Kauffman reports.

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Pentagon appears to impede independent autopsy of Gitmo ’suicide’
By Diana Sweet
February 4, 2010 – The family of a former Gitmo detainee are still waiting years later for answers regarding the events leading up to their son’s death. Hope that a second autopsy would provide those answers have been at a standstill as the doctor who performed the autopsy waits for U.S. officials to respond to a request for the return of the deceased’s missing throat, a request the Pentagon now appears to be denying was ever made.Ahmed Ali Al-Salami was one of three inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba’s Naval base whose death in 2006 was ruled a suicide by the U.S. military…A report published in Harper’s Magazine, and written by constitutional scholar and Contributing Editor of Harper’s Scott Horton, includes details provided to Harper’s by four members of a US military intelligence unit assigned to Guantanamo Bay. “All four soldiers say they were ordered by their commanding officer not to speak out, and all four soldiers provide evidence that authorities initiated a cover-up within hours of the prisoners’ deaths,” reported Horton…

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US verdict sparks Pakistan protests
Aljazeera.net
February 4, 2010 – Thousands of Pakistanis have staged rallies against the conviction of a Pakistani scientist found guilty of trying to kill American servicemen in Afghanistan. Protests were held on Thursday in several cities in Pakistan, where many believe that Aafia Siddiqui is innocent. The neuroscientist, branded “Lady Qaeda” by some in the US press, disappeared for five years before her arrest in Afghanistan in 2008. She was convicted in a New York court on Wednesday…

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GAZA; ILLUSIONS AND REALITY
Steve Amsel, Desertpeace
February 4, 2010 – The United States seems to live on illusions…… illusions of hope, change and more that have no connection to the reality of life. Whitewashing the war crimes that were carried out in Gaza last year is a part of those illusions. Perhaps the logic is that if Israel is not quite guilty as charged, then those that aided Israel in those crimes might not be charged later on. A year after the Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza, a year after 1400 innocent civilians were brutally slaughtered, including over 450 children, the crimes can be ‘wiped out’ by easing the siege that still exists on Gaza. Brings to mind the definition of Chutzpah…

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Pakistan: Killed Americans were part of 100-strong commando unit
By Amir Mir
February 04, 2010- The three US soldiers who lost their lives on Wednesday in a school bombing incident in Dir Lower were members of the Army Special Forces, which has been training the Frontier Corps to improve its intelligence and combat tactics to effectively fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt. It is for the first time since the American occupation of Afghanistan in October 2001 that any US soldier has been killed in Pakistan, that too in a terrorist act. According to well informed diplomatic circles in Islamabad, the slain US soldiers were part of a 100-member strong special American military training unit which was dispatched to Pakistan in 2008 to raise a 1,000-member strong well-trained paramilitary commando unit which could conduct guerrilla operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban militants active in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt and involved in cross-border ambushes against the US-led allied forces stationed in Afghanistan…

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Israeli army Kidnaps 29 Palestinians in the West Bank
Saed Bannoura
February 04, 2010 – Israeli soldiers detained, on Thursday at dawn, 29 Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank. Army sources claimed that those detained are on their “wanted-list” by the Israeli security. Seven residents were kidnapped in Qalqilia district, one in Jenin, three in Ramallah, eight in Bethlehem and ten in Hebron; all were moved to interrogation centers for questioning. Nine Palestinians were forced out of their homes in Hebron city and were taken by the soldiers. Their families were forced under the rain while the soldiers searched and sabotaged their homes…

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Smoking Guns and Bulls-eyes: Israel rewrote the rules of War for Gaza
Eileen Fleming
February 4, 2010 – On February 3, 2010, The Independent reported that a high-ranking officer who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, admitted that Israel’s army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives and “that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as ‘means and intentions’– whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter.” A junior officer described the new policy as one of “literally zero risk to the soldiers.” [Ibid] Israeli human rights lawyers, Michael Sfard, commented that the senior commander’s acknowledgment was “a smoking gun.”

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B’Tselem: Israel’s report to the UN misstates the truth
B’Tselem
February 4, 2010 – On Friday, 29 January 2010, Israel submitted to the UN an update on the investigations opened following Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. The 46-page document offers almost no new information, except for updated figures on the investigations. The report states that, to date, the military has begun to examine 150 cases, most of which are still under review. In 36 cases, a Military Police investigation was initiated; the others were examined in the framework of military debriefings. This report, like previous information that official sources have published, does not specify which cases are being examined or the stage each investigation has reached…

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